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Ultimate Software (ULTI), a leading global provider of human capital management (HCM) solutions in the cloud, announced today that 4,200 HR and business professionals, partners, and industry analysts from around the globe attended this year’s Connections, Ultimate’s annual customer and partner conference, held April 2-4 at the Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Resort.

This year’s Connections theme was “Dream,” and the three-day conference offered nearly 90 breakout sessions and workshops that emphasized the power of dreaming big: imagining the best practices for an optimal employee experience, committing to big goals, and taking bold action. At the conference’s opening session, Ultimate’s Chief Technology Officer, Adam Rogers, and Vice President of Products, Martin Hartshorne, showcased some of Ultimate’s latest innovations, including:

Candidate Match: a new feature within UltiPro Recruiting that leverages Ultimate's “People First” AI engine, Xander® to intelligently generate a list of recommended applicants for a specific opportunity, while removing the impact of unconscious bias from the process of reviewing applications. This feature analyzes job-description data and candidate data to compare key attributes—helping to identify the best match for each position. When recruiters take action within the solution, its machine-learning capabilities are continuously learning from those actions and improving the quality of future recommendations. With Candidate Match, customers can remove unconscious bias and provide candidates equal opportunities, while also increasing the speed and efficiency of the hiring process.

Employee Case Management: UltiPro Employee Case Management improves the employee experience with on-demand support for HR-related requests. The solution empowers employees to search and find answers to important HR questions via a personalized knowledgebase, or by submitting requests that are automatically routed to the appropriate HR team member. With UltiPro Employee Case Management, HR professionals can automate tasks related to employee events using intelligent process-automation technology, and assess key metrics to make data-driven decisions that optimize the service delivered to employees.

Employee File Management: UltiPro Employee File Management enables HR to digitally store and manage employee documents in one, central location. HR teams can easily create, access, or share files at any time—whether they’re generated in UltiPro, sent from other business systems, emailed as attachments, or even uploaded from paper—and keep a secure audit trail of actions performed on a document.

Enhanced Mobile App: UltiPro’s updated native mobile app for iOS (Apple) and Android smartphones and tablets offers an enhanced experience with additional functionality and a new look and feel. UltiPro's mobile app empowers employees to instantly and securely access relevant information, including clocking in and out, requesting time off, viewing current pay information, and contacting colleagues. Leaders in the organization can view and approve requests, receive alerts for prescriptive leadership actions, view and update progress on goals, send company-wide messages, and access reports. With elevated convenience, employees can get their jobs done quickly and easily, improving their productivity and overall experience.

Continuous Performance: UltiPro Continuous Performance enhances employee coaching by focusing on ongoing work-related feedback, check-ins, and goal updates. Powered by Xander, the solution focuses on making it easier to gather more frequent input from multiple stakeholders on an employee's contributions—and understand the common themes in feedback from multiple stakeholders—rather than relying only on a traditional annual performance assessment by one direct supervisor. This new solution enables employees and managers to collect, process, and take the next step to coach and develop individuals, teams, and organizations, and drive an overall better performance experience.

Giving: UltiPro Giving helps HR teams drive social responsibility within their cultures by making it simple to setup, manage, and facilitate employee contributions to charitable campaigns via UltiPro—including on the mobile app. This functionality will include an experience for campaign administrators, employee participation, and the payroll administrators’ payroll processing. Employee contributions can be easily withheld from payroll and reported on W-2s. UltiPro Giving makes it easy for employees to give back to their communities and beyond, increasing participation in programs that make a difference.

With a record number of HR, payroll, and talent management professionals attending the conference, Connections 2019 featured opportunities for global customers to expand their knowledge of Ultimate’s technology and solutions, gain insight into HR and payroll issues and trends, learn from hands-on training, collaborate with other UltiPro users, and interact closely with company leadership and industry influencers.

“Ultimate has been a vital partner as we’ve grown our global footprint over the last seven years,” said Summer Moore, HRIS manager at Reyes Holdings, a 30,000-employee beverage and food distributor for brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Panera Bread. “Through UltiPro, we have visibility into our human capital around the world, and an essential platform to sustain our business vision and drive results.”

Keynote speakers at this year’s conference also included Scott Scherr, Ultimate’s chief executive officer, president, and founder, and Viv Maza, Ultimate's chief people officer, as well as:

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, NBA Hall of Famers, who spoke about the importance of teamwork, a winning spirit, and the limitless success that accompanies a determination to overcome any obstacle.

Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work, who explained how a great company culture is the key to success in business, and that great cultures are built on a foundation of trust, respect, and fairness.

Mick Ebeling, film and TV producer, philanthropist, author, and technology trailblazer, who related his story of how dreaming big led him on a mission to create technology for the sake of humanity.

Ultimate also presented its annual Innovation Awards, recognizing customers that have demonstrated outstanding use of Ultimate’s newest offerings, extraordinary business results, or HCM transformation with UltiPro in the past year. The following Ultimate customers received 2019 Innovation Awards:

Level Access was named the Innovation Evangelist category winner for using insights from UltiPro Perception to create action plans that improved attrition, cut regrettable turnover, and boosted employee engagement, driving savings of $1.7 million annually.

PSAV Presentation Services won in the category of ROI/Measurable Benefits for using UltiPro Business Intelligence to optimize scheduling and eliminate the cost of third-party staffing, saving $20 million per year.

Palmer-Donavin won in the category of ROI/Measurable Benefits for making substantial improvements in new-hire and overall turnover by taking inspiration from UltiPro’s Leadership Actions to engage and retain key talent, and using UltiPro Business Intelligence to ensure manager actions were completed promptly and universally.

Rush Enterprises, Inc.,won in the category of ROI/Measurable Benefits for using UltiPro as its single system of record to generate savings in HR of 250 work hours per week, equivalent to almost $500,000 per year.

ALCAL Industries, Inc.,was a winner in the HR Transformation category for using UltiPro Compensation Management to provide mangers with the necessary visibility and insight to make the best pay decisions, and to make managers more sensitive to, and responsible for, a fair and equitable culture.

Genesco, Inc., won in the category of HR Transformation for executing against nearly 100 People, Process, and Product recommendations provided by Ultimate consultants, which have cut payroll processing time by half and enabled HR to take full advantage of delivered functionality.

Contura Energy won in the category of HR Transformation for its quick, 45-day launch of UltiPro, the use of UltiPro to communicate with its employees across several divisions and states, and the way the company leveraged UltiPro to facilitate an acquisition that doubled the size of the company and to meet its aggressive payroll timeline.

Fox World Travel, Inc.,won in the category of HR Transformation for using UltiPro’s integrated suite to generate substantial time and dollar savings, and to simplify the employee experience through payroll, online open enrollment, UltiPro Recruiting and UltiPro Onboarding, UltiPro Perception, UltiPro Performance Management, and the UltiPro mobile app.

As a thank you to customers for their lifelong partnership and support, Ultimate also hosted a Customer Appreciation Party featuring a concert by singer and songwriter sensation, Katy Perry.

“The Connections experience is another demonstration of how our two companies share the same principles,” said Pablo Brizi, CHRO at Bloomin’ Brands. “We are both founder-inspired companies that take care of their employees and customers. Ultimate’s People First philosophy translates into the highest level of care for its customers, something we enjoy through a responsive customer service team. Ultimate’s ability to execute across the HCM product lifecycle gives us the tools we need to put our 93,000 employees first.”

“We founded Ultimate with a dream that embraced putting our own employees first, and building software that could help other companies do the same,” said Scott Scherr, Ultimate’s CEO, president, and founder. “Thanks to our customers, that dream has come true. Our customers demonstrate that treating employees with care and respect is not only compatible with—but essential to—long-term growth and profitability. I’m grateful for this opportunity at Connections to be surrounded by likeminded professionals who recognize that a focus on employee needs leads to better products, services, and business results.”

About Ultimate Software

Ultimate Software is a leading global provider of cloud-based human capital management and employee experience solutions, with more than 48 million people records in the cloud. Our award-winning UltiPro delivers HR, payroll, talent, and time and labor management, as well as HR service delivery solutions. Founded in 1990, Ultimate is headquartered in Weston, Florida, and employs more than 5,100 professionals. In 2019, Fortune magazine and Great Place to Work ranked Ultimate #1 on their Best Workplaces in Technology list, in the “Large Companies” category, Ultimate’s fourth consecutive year to top the list. In 2018, Fortune ranked Ultimate #1 on its 100 Best Workplaces for Women list and #1 on its 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials list, our second year at the top. Customer Sales and Service World Awards also recognized Ultimate’s Services team as the #1 Customer Service Department of the Year in 2018 for companies with 2,500 employees or larger across diverse industries. Ultimate has more than 5,600 customers worldwide, including Bloomin’ Brands, Culligan International, Feeding America, Red Roof Inn, SUBWAY, Texas Roadhouse, and Yamaha Corporation of America. More information on Ultimate’s products and services can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.

UltiPro is a registered trademark of The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.